Applications: Refreshing St. Ives
St. Ives’s redesigned graphics were designed to feel softer and more sensory.
How BrandScope updated the St. Ives line.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorWhen Swiss personal care brand St. Ives first launched in the 1980s, it gained a strong mass-market following. Later, St. Ives extended its line by launching, piecemeal, various SKUs. As a result, the brand’s packaging image became disjointed.
“The packages were a mish-mash, and there was no strong rationale behind new product introductions,” says Dennis Furniss, vice president of branding and design for design firm BrandScope. Last year, BrandScope was asked to reposition St. Ives and update its packaging. Because Alberto-Culver, St. Ives’s licensor, already had manufacturing lines in place to produce St. Ives’s primary packaging, BrandScope instead focused on revamping the line’s labels.
BrandScope enlisted the help of St. Ives’s advertising agency, Campbell Mithun. By bringing the ad agency on board early on, Furniss says that they were able to create a strategy that worked throughout marketing, advertising, commercials, and packaging.
St. Ives packaging prior to redesign.
The line’s labels were entirely redesigned. BrandScope started by recrafting the St. Ives icon, a rendering of the Swiss Alps. Keeping the icon of the Swiss Alps was important because it helped leverage the brand as a Swiss laboratory. According to Furniss, however, consumers viewed the original version as looking hostile, cold, dangerous, and insurmountable. BrandScope created a softer, friendlier drawing of the mountains. “We also brought the perspective down so that you feel like you’re at eye level with the mountains,” Furniss adds.
BrandScope then replaced the original illustrations of botanical ingredients on the labels with photos. “We realized that we had to move away from illustrations because we needed something that was much more real and very sensory,” says Furniss.
Below the photography, BrandScope placed a wave-like graphic that Furniss says conveys the pure feeling of Swiss glacial water. BrandScope retained St. Ives’ signature mortar and pestle icon, but made it smaller and discreet to make it feel more authentic.
On the tubes, bottles, and caps, BrandScope added a soft-touch finish to speak to the products’ soft-skin benefits. It also changed the color of the packages to a warm white color. “Prior to the restage, the packages were a glaring, in-your-face color,” says Furniss.
The packaging suppliers for the line include Berry-Tubed Products (Easthampton, MA) for the tubes, Zeller Plastik (Libertyville, IL) for the 12-oz bottle closures and the 2-in. tube closures, Seaquist Closures (Mukwonago, WI) for the 1 3/8-in. tube closures, MeadWestvaco Calmar (Grandview, MO) for the 18-oz bottle pumps, Labelad (Markham, ON, Canada) for the labels, and Silgan (Stamford, CT) for the tube decoration. Alberto-Culver manufactured the lotion and body wash bottles.
Thanks to BrandScope, St. Ives is now able to sell its products at a higher price point. Deeming BrandScope successful, Alberto-Culver recently gave it its 2006 Accent Award for Best Packaging for its work.